Euronews

All 39 Eurovision Song Contest entries are already available to watch online on eurovision.tv. Not patient enough to wait for the big day, we have had a sneaky preview look and passed our own judgement. We have graded each song according to both our own personal tastes and to what we think its chances are of success.

Here is the second selection: these are the five next songs that will be performed in Semi-Final 1 on Tuesday, May 14. Come back tomorrow for the next instalment!

Who the hell are we to judge?
The euronews jury is made up of three music-loving but unfortunately not music-playing journalists, who reserve the right to be honest while trying to remain respectful to the performers: Mark Davis (normally found listening to Pearl Jam, Jake Bugg, the Stone Roses), Thomas Seymat (Alt-J, Franck Ocean, Daft Punk) and Marie Jamet (Marvin Gaye, Pulp, Clinic).

Russia

Dina Garipova – What If

MD: ‘What If’ is what ‘Imagine’ would have been like if it had been written by Hello Kitty rather than John Lennon. It reminds me of ‘Dawson’s Creek’, which is not a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with Dina; fair play to her in fact for singing those lyrics with a straight face. And I won’t even begin to describe the video, as watching it made me sick in my mouth twice. Russia always gets votes though from its neighbours, so it might even win, the tragedy of which would be greater than the video. Nul points, 50-1 to win.TS: The song is so cheesy and has so many strings that Switzerland migh sue Russia for patent violation of the fondue recipe. A much much more indigestible, stodgy, silly fondue. Nul points, 45-1 to win (unfortunately).

Ukraine

Zlata Ognevich - Gravity

TS: There is no denying that the singer is talented, but the song stays dull no matter how hard she tries. She isn’t help by the bland music. Also, the African gimmicky back vocals are a weird addition. 1 point, 30-1 to win.MD: They’ve obviously spent a lot of money on the video, which is similar to a 3-minute version of Avatar, but this is meant to be a song contest. And this ‘song’ goes nowhere. Twice. You wait for Godot but he never arrives. When they have to perform this on stage, without so many special effects, poor Zlata will have to go out there armed with nothing but a really good voice. If she pulls this off then good luck to her. Nul points, 100-1 to win.

The Netherlands

Anouk – Birds

MJ: An orchestra-backed melody that sounds very much like a Hollywood musical from the 50s, or a Disney song. It’s got an abundance of charm but I can’t see it winning Eurovision. 10 points, 150-1 to win.TS: Nice warm voice, some jazzy 60s music, nice build-up, the Netherlands manages to have a pretty decent song with Anouk’s Birds. Let’s hope for her that her stage presence will make out for the lack of wow-effect the Eurovision audience is so fond of. 7 points, 35-1 to win.

Montenegro

Who See – Igranka

MD: What with the hip-hop and the dubstep, this is a little darker than what we expect from Eurovision, but a change is always welcome. I’m not sure it will be to everyone’s tastes though even if I applaud ‘Who See’ for the following lyric: “Beat Goes crazy in my head, burn down bag, give me a drink/Grill, garlic, parsley and fish, give me all so I can overeat.” Due to cultural differences I have no idea what that means but I like it. 8 points, 66-1 to win.TS: “Who See” manage to reproduce the current mainstream techno/rap/dubstep mixture so accurately that this song, if it were in English, would probably be a Top 40 hit for a couple of weeks. Sadly for them, it comes from Montenegro. 5 points, 40-1 to win.

Lithuania

Andrius Pojavis – Something

MD: Andrius Pojavis is clearly someone who loves the camera and he can do very strange things with his eyebrows. I was too focussed on him to even hear the music until an epic ‘YEAH’ bang in the middle of the video woke me up. After that it just felt I was watching karaoke. 1 point (for the eyebrow dancing), 100-1 to win.TS: Yeeahhhh, those eyebrows are truly something else indeed. The song, on the other hand, is just like every other Eurovision sub-par songs that will be forgotten as soon as Andrius gets off stage. 1 point, 100-1 to win.